The Impact of Business Intelligence on Cyber Security

By Dan Radak

A lot of people believe that the matter of cyber-security depends solely on the type of software you use. However, firewalls, DMZs and IDSes on their own are not enough to protect you. Your business is never up against a machine, it is up against other people, which makes this conflict more of a chess game and less of an armament race. What you need is to learn how to predict threats, vulnerabilities, and risky behavior models so that your business can become overall more secure. Some may find great pride in their intuition and 'gut feeling', but this is never the force that should guide your security system. If you know both yourself and your enemy, you have a higher chance of winning the potential battles.

How Dangerous is It?

First of all, you need to know everything you are up against so that you are aware of the full danger you might face. There are many business impacts of a cyber-attack. The most obvious and expected ones are the loss of data, customer trust and a significant amount of resources. The last one is due to both actual attack and its aftermath. The customer relations would have to be fixed and this could cost quite a bit. Also, fines have to be payed and cyber security improvements introduced.

However, these are just the tip of the iceberg. There are also some losses that can't be precisely pinpointed, like the devaluation of your brand, loss of intellectual property, and the increase in insurance premium. Overall, whatever the price of preventing this from happening may be, it is always worth it.

Data and How to Use It

Another thing you need to think about is the data necessary to make your security system a lot safer. In a modern digital environment, gathering data is not that hard. Various firewall logs, digital checkpoints and records will provide you with all the numbers you need, but once you take a glimpse at all that was gathered, you won't have much clue of what is to be done. This is because data is practically useless on its own. First you need to turn it into intelligible information and this is where Bi software such as Panorama steps in. Not only does it interpret all the data, but it also presents it to you in a highly graphical manner by using dashboards and KPI alerts.

Starting on Time

The biggest problem in boosting your cyber security won't be in the software you use, but in your team and security policies. Why is this so? Well, simply because utilizing all these measures takes a lot of time to get accustomed to. In the future, we can only expect this issue to gain more significance, which is why it would be wise to start preparing some of your most promising staff members for this position as soon as possible. This usually includes sending them on courses, having them attend seminars and helping them get accustomed to your particular security software.

Conclusion

While having all the information won't 100 percent protect you from malicious online activity, it will definitely give you some pointers towards where the danger is coming from. Finding out what your security's weak spots are can help you reinforce them and even learn how these gaps can be mended in the future. Finally, it helps you save your money by showing you exactly where your resources should go in order to make the grid as solid as possible. All in all, investing in business intelligence governed cyber security is a sensible choice for any company, regardless of its size.